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Post by blackcrowheart on Mar 4, 2007 21:30:34 GMT -5
Cherokees vote out slaves' descendants
By MURRAY EVANS
OKLAHOMA CITY - Cherokee Nation members voted Saturday to revoke the tribal citizenship of an estimated 2,800 descendants of the people the Cherokee once owned as slaves. With all 32 precincts reporting, 76.6 percent had voted in favor of an amendment to the tribal constitution that would limit citizenship to descendants of "by blood" tribe members as listed on the federal Dawes Commission's rolls from more than 100 years ago.
The commission, set up by a Congress bent on breaking up Indians' collective lands and parceling them out to tribal citizens, drew up two rolls, one listing Cherokees by blood and the other listing freedmen, a roll of blacks regardless of whether they had Indian blood.
Some opponents of the ballot question argued that attempts to remove freedmen from the tribe were motivated by racism.
"I'm very disappointed that people bought into a lot of rhetoric and falsehoods by tribal leaders," said Marilyn Vann, president of the Oklahoma City-based Descendants of Freedmen of Five Civilized Tribes.
Tribal officials said the vote was a matter of self-determination.
"The Cherokee people exercised the most basic democratic right, the right to vote," tribal Principal Chief Chad Smith said. "Their voice is clear as to who should be citizens of the Cherokee Nation. No one else has the right to make that determination.'
Smith said turnout — more than 8,700 — was higher than turnout for the tribal vote on the Cherokee Nation constitution four years ago.
"On lots of issues, when they go to identity, they become things that people pay attention to," Smith said.
The petition drive for the ballot measure followed a March 2006 ruling by the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court that said an 1866 treaty assured freedmen descendants of tribal citizenship. Since then, more than 2,000 freedmen descendants have enrolled as citizens of the tribe.
Court challenges by freedmen descendants seeking to stop the election were denied, but a federal judge left open the possibility that the case could be refiled if Cherokees voted to lift their membership rights.
Tribal spokesman Mike Miller said the period to protest the election lasts until March 12 and Cherokee courts are the proper venue for a challenge.
Vann promised a protest within the next week. "We don't accept this fraudulent election," Vann said.
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Post by blackcrowheart on Mar 11, 2007 19:27:22 GMT -5
Federal Judge Denies Cherokee Nation Motion to Dismiss Freedmen's Right To Vote
12/28/2006
_http://www.nativetihttp://www.nathttp://www.http://www.nat_ (http://www.nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle) <_http://www.nativetihttp://www.nathttp://www.http://www.nat&<WBR>articl_ (http://www.nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=8) 481> &article_id=artic
Federal District Court in Washington D.C. denied the Cherokee Nation's Motion and provides their day in court for Cherokee Freedmen to enforce provisions of Treaty of 1866 and the 13th Amendment against U.S. Officials, the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and Principal Chief Chad Smith.
Judge Henry H. Kennedy handed down a ruling in the case of Vann v. Kempthorne, 03-01711, which denied the Cherokee Nation's Motion to Dismiss an action filed by a number of Cherokee Freedmen citizens against United States Officials for breaching its fiduciary duty by failing to enforce the Treaty of 1866 and the 13th Amendment when Cherokee Freedmen Citizens were denied the right to vote in the Cherokee Nation's 2003 election for Principal Chief and Amendment to the Cherokee Constitution.
The ruling also permitted the Freedmen to amend its complaint to add the Cherokee Nation and Principal Chief Smith who have refuted the U.S. refusal to recognize the amendment to the Constitution and have set an election in February of 2007 to remove the Freedmen citizens from the Tribe subsequent to the filing of this action.
Jon Velie, attorney for the Freedmen states, "The decision to deny the Motion to Dismiss is important because it gives these Cherokee citizens a Federal judicial forum to contest a violation of the Treaty of 1866 by both the United States and Cherokee officials. Ironically, the decision merely provides these American Indian citizens the basic rights others in American take for granted, their day in court.
Although it may not be apparent to others in Indian Country, it is a positive outcome that the case was not denied because the effect would have nullified enforcement of Treaty rights. This is dangerous for all of Indian Nations because treaties are the paramount form recognition of the government-to-the government-to-<WBR>government relationship between States. A technical defense eliminating enforcement of treaties could open legal challenges to others treaties, effecting the rights of Native Nations."
For individual Indians, such as Marilyn Vann and the other Plaintiffs, her rights preserved today are significant. It should be a basic right in any democracy that a citizen can stand up for her rights when her elected officials trample her constitutional rights to vote or threaten to remove her from her Tribe."
Marilyn Vann, lead Plaintiff states, "I am pleased that the honorable judge has held that the Cherokee Nation, a federally recognized tribe is required to follow the laws of the US Constitution and to follow the Treaty of 1866 as prior leaders swore to do more than 140 years ago when they wished to re-establish government-to-they wished to re-establish the United States."
NTN Article#: 8481
Cara Cowan Watts Cherokee Nation Tribal Council District 7 - Will Rogers P.O. Box 2922 Claremore, OK 74018 C: 918 752-4342 F: 918 341-3753 Email: <mailto:_cara@caracowan.car_ (mailto:cara@caracowan.com) > _cara@caracowan.car_ (mailto:cara@caracowan.com) Url: _http://www.caracowahttp:_ (http://www.caracowan.com/) American Indian Science and Engineering Society: _http://www.aises.htt_ (http://www.aises.org/) Important Cherokee Nation Links - Utilize these websites for job opportunities, understanding services and more! Cherokee Nation: _http://www.cherokeehttp_ (http://www.cherokee.org/) <_http://www.cherokeehttp:_ (http://www.cherokee.org/) > Cherokee Heritage Center: _http://www.cherokeehttp://wwhtt_ (http://www.cherokeeheritage.org/) <_http://www.cherokeehttp://wwhttp_ (http://www.cherokeeheritage.org/) > Cherokee Nation Housing: _http://www.hacn.htt_ (http://www.hacn.org/) Cherokee Nation Enterprises: _http://www.cherokeehttp://www_ (http://www.cherokeecasino.com/) <_http://www.cherokeehttp://www._ (http://www.cherokeecasino.com/) > Cherokee Nation Industries: _http://www.cnicnd.http_ (http://www.cnicnd.com/) Talking Leaves Job Corp: _http://www.tljcc.htt_ (http://www.tljcc.com/) Sequoyah High School: _http://www.sequoyahhttp://www._ (http://www.sequoyah.k12.ok.us/)
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Post by blackcrowheart on May 22, 2007 9:51:27 GMT -5
Fight over Cherokee identity intensifies
Lucy Allen says she has Cherokee blood and maintains that members of her family, once slaves to Cherokee Indians, became freedmen and citizens of the Cherokee Nation under a federal treaty of 1866. By ADAM GELLER
TAHLEQUAH, Okla. — When Lucy Allen sets out to tell her family’s story, she first finds an empty room with plenty of open table space.
Others, she knows, illustrate their ancestral legends by passing around a single prized photograph or diagram of the family tree. But Allen arrives wheeling two big black suitcases, each stuffed with enough supporting evidence to do Perry Mason proud.
“This is my father,” she begins, and directs long, thin fingers to a vintage oval-framed photograph swaddled in a towel.
A long time ago, the man in the picture told his little girl she was born of Indians. They were Cherokees, he said, proud people, descended from a regal line.
The girl loved those stories. But it wasn’t until she had children of her own, that Allen realized the tales might have dimensions she’d never considered. And years later, a long-forgotten document proved her suspicions right.
It was just as her parents told her. Yes, she was black. But there was Cherokee in her veins, too.
There was a catch, though, and it was bound to persist no matter how clear the evidence might seem to Allen.
She could call herself an Indian. She and others like her could argue that, Indian blood or not, they had as much right to the Cherokee Nation’s identity as anyone else.
But Allen’s “proof” could just as easily be cited to show her people were not real Cherokees at all, but a human burden a defeated tribe had been forced to shoulder.
A century past, Allen’s ancestors had secured what they thought was a permanent place in the tribe. Now, though, it was clear the only way she could ever be acknowledged as Cherokee would be to take on the very Cherokees who refused to count her as one of their own.
Masters of black slaves
This begins as one woman’s story, but it is much more. It is the story of identity. Who are we? Who decides who we are?
Each September, a crowd gathers under the shade trees surrounding the weathered brick of the old Cherokee Capitol to celebrate the remarkably resilient identity of the nation’s largest Indian tribe.
It is a pride-filled afternoon, with speeches, and songs performed in Cherokee by a children’s choir.
But as they celebrate their identity, Cherokees acknowledge the brutal history of efforts to extinguish it.
“We stand here today on the shoulders of our ancestors, who endured the Trail of Tears and brought us to this place we call home,” a speaker told the crowd last fall in Tahlequah.
And yet while Cherokees are proud of their journey, there is one chapter most aren’t taught.
Long ago, as Cherokees struggled to remain independent of a white government, they were masters of black slaves.
Cherokees and other tribes brought slaves with them, when the federal government forced them to leave the Southeast and march to the Indian Territory that would become Oklahoma. After the tribe backed the losing side in the Civil War, the government demanded Cherokees free slaves and make them citizens of the Cherokee Nation.
The people, dubbed freedmen, embraced citizenship. They voted in tribal elections and ran for office. They served on the tribal council. They started businesses and became teachers in schools for freedmen children.
What’s difficult to know is how much — before and after slavery ended — the lives of Cherokees and blacks intertwined and the lines between them blurred.
In the last 20 years, modern-day freedmen — descended from former slaves, free blacks, and others — have tried to reclaim citizenship. The resulting conflict provokes charges and countercharges that racism, greed and dirty politics are all at play.
“Do you want non-Indians...using your Health Care Dollars?” warned an e-mail circulated last summer by backers of a vote on citizenship. “...getting your Cherokee Nation scholarship dollars?...making your Housing wait list longer?...being made Indians?”
Now, the vote on citizenship is set — for March 3.
As they consider their decision, Cherokees have reason to be suspicious.
The federal government pays about three-quarters of the tribal government’s $350 million annual budget. But thanks to casinos, Cherokees’ power to generate wealth and provide benefits is increasing. Meanwhile, dozens of groups of self-described lost Cherokees have popped up, some claiming a right to recognition.
But Chad Smith, principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, says his tribe’s conflict over citizenship — similar to those confronting a number of tribes — is not about politics or race.
“It’s just a fundamental right of sovereignty...to not only determine your own future, but to determine your own identity,” he says.
The conflict, though, has drawn scrutiny to a part of history some Cherokees would just as soon have set aside. Circe Sturm, a University of Oklahoma professor, recalls how Cherokees tried to dissuade her when she began studying the issue a decade ago.
“I think for some people it was sort of a shame about that being part of history,” she says. “There was a kind of discomfort attached to it in many ways. It was like we’ve dealt with it and it’s over.”
Well, maybe to some it was over.
But that was a notion Lucy Allen and many others just couldn’t abide.
A blood link
After 20 years spent raising a family and following her husband in his Army career, Lucy Allen discovered the blessing of time.
Before long, she was spending hours in historical archives, prospecting for clues to back up her family’s oft-told mythology.
“Once you start on this, if you get something, you’re hooked,” she says.
Oh, was she ever.
Allen, now 74 and the widow of a career Army man, quickly found her ancestors on Cherokee citizenship rolls from the early 1900s. The lists were compiled by the Dawes Commission — set up by a Congress bent on breaking up Indians’ collective lands and parceling them out to tribal citizens. Many Indians were soon swindled out of their land, or lost it to financial hardship.
The Commission, though, drew up two rolls. One listed Cherokees by blood. The other, where Allen’s ancestors were listed, was for freedmen — a roll of blacks, regardless of whether they had Indian blood.
Then, in the early 1990s, nearly two decades after beginning her search, a manila envelope from the National Archives arrived in Allen’s Tulsa mailbox. Papers inside offered a window back to a long forgotten afternoon.
On that Thursday in 1901, a black farmer named William Martin — Allen’s great-grandfather — headed for the colony of tents pitched by the Dawes Commission along a creek two miles outside his hometown.
“How old would you be?” a mustachioed white official asked Martin, when he reached the tribunal’s table.
“Something over 40, I judge,” replied Martin, son of a freed slave woman. She, too, was questioned.
“What is your father’s name?”
“Joe Martin.”
“Was Joe Martin an Indian and a citizen of the Cherokee Nation?” the questioner asked Martin’s mother.
“Yes sir.”
The aged transcript was the link, Allen says, connecting her to Capt. Joseph L. Martin, a Confederate officer and Cherokee lord of a legendary 100,000-acre ranch.
He owned 103 black slaves. And one, it seemed, had born him a son — Allen’s great-grandfather.
As Allen studied the documents it became clear, “I’m more than my Dad ever told me. They’re telling me his (William Martin’s) daddy was a chief.
Oh, yeah, I’m sticking my chest out, because I’m pretty proud.”
Indian lineage Allen unearthed on her father’s side was at least as rich.
But since the early 1980s, her request for a Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood — issued only to those who can prove a link to someone on the commission’s “by blood” rolls — has been rejected eight times, Allen says. Rejection stings, she says, and others agree.
Around Ruth Adair Nash’s dining table in Bartlesville, discussion quickly fans indignation. Nash and brother Everett Adair say their genealogical sleuthing has turned up clear evidence that they are descendants of Cherokees.
So Nash bridles at the suggestion that she claims blood just to get tribal benefits. Sure, they want access to benefits, she says. They are determined to have them precisely because the Cherokee Nation has continually denied them, she says.
“They don’t want this to be true,” Nash says, waving copies of genealogical records.
“It’s because we’re black. And when you’re black — get back!”
Johnny Toomer, a forklift driver in Muskogee, sees it a little differently, his view framed by working alongside Cherokees. They look at his high cheekbones and dark eyes set against mocha skin, and tell him he must be right.
“Johnny,” they say, “you can see the Indian in you!”
“Well,” Toomer answers, “seeing it and proving it is quite a different thing.”
A victory for freedmen
Allen continued digging.
It took her to a meeting of freedmen descendants in 2003, where a man named David Cornsilk rose to speak.
Cornsilk, 6-foot-2 and green-eyed, jokes that he’s often mistaken for white, though he is Cherokee by blood. He worked years ago in the Cherokee Nation office that registers citizens and now is a store manager. But as an unpaid “lay advocate,” he’s poured himself into battling for freedmen descendants, convinced his tribe must honor its commitments.
When Allen approached, Cornsilk had recently lost a case in the Cherokee Nation’s top court — which resolves disagreements over tribal law — on behalf of another woman seeking citizenship. It was the latest in a series of court setbacks for freedmen, dating to the 1980s.
Still, when “Lucy walked up to me and said, ‘What can I do?’ ” Cornsilk recalls, “I said, well, let’s sue them.”
Lucy Allen v. Cherokee Nation Tribal Council, filed in 2004, asked the court to strike down a law making citizenship contingent on “proof of Cherokee blood.”
The issue, as framed by Cornsilk, was even older than the old Cherokee Capitol, where the judges heard the case.
“We as a people must look back to where we have been to know where we are today,” Cornsilk argued.
“I apologize to you for being emotional about it. It’s not my ego, it’s my heart. It’s what’s been done in the name of David Cornsilk and all of the Cherokee people to these Cherokee people.”
But tribal lawyers argued that Cherokees — who approved a Constitution in 1975 reserving membership for “citizens as proven by reference to the Dawes Commission Rolls” — had already made clear freedmen should not be counted among them.
“It’s not unreasonable to require someone to be Cherokee to be a citizen of the Cherokee Nation,” Richard Osburn, an attorney for the tribe, told the court.
Seven months later, a divided court issued its ruling.
“If the Freedmen’s citizenship rights existed on the very night before the 1975 Constitution was approved, then they must necessarily survive today,” Justice Stacy Leeds wrote for the 2-1 majority, last March. “The Cherokee Nation is much more than just a group of families with a common ancestry.”
Allen, celebrating the answer she’d been waiting for, drove with her sons to Tahlequah to register as new citizens.
Many Cherokees fight back
But the court’s decision alarmed many others.
“It really shook me up,” says John Ketcher, a respected former deputy chief. “We’re not just going to sit here and twiddle our thumbs and let it happen.”
To Ketcher and others, the freedmen’s quest for citizenship looks like a cash-grab — for tribal health-care benefits, scholarships and other perks — by people who have little true interest in the Cherokees. Growing up in Indian country, speaking Cherokee as his first language, Ketcher says he never saw a black person until he was 10, leaving him skeptical that freedmen descendants are part of the Cherokee community.
“I think they want some of the goodies that are coming our way,” he says. Many Cherokees share that sentiment, says Cara Cowan Watts, a tribal councilwoman.
“A lot of our citizens, they never ask for anything from the tribe, so they see that as a personal affront,” Cowan Watts says.
“I didn’t hear of freedmen until this whole issue came up,” she says. “I didn’t hear of them or meet them.”
Tribal officials reject criticism that the controversy stems from racism. Cherokees are one of the most racially tolerant Indian tribes, “and being portrayed as something else...is hurtful,” says Mike Miller, a spokesmen for the tribe.
After the Allen ruling, critics collected more than 3,000 signatures demanding that Cherokee voters be allowed to decide. Smith, the chief, has called a vote for March 3.
Earlier this month, a group of freedmen asked a federal judge to stop the vote from taking place. The court’s response to that request — part of an ongoing lawsuit by freedmen challenging the last tribal election because they were excluded from voting — will be closely watched.
If the referendum goes ahead, conventional wisdom is that, even with more than 1,500 new freedmen voters registered, they will be denied citizenship again.
But the issue’s complexity is evident in talk over cornbread and ham at a meeting of the Victory Cherokee Organization, a community group gathered above a storefront church in Collinsville. Chairman Danny Stanley calls the issue settled, saying members are “pretty much 100 percent” against having freedmen in the tribe.
Some, though, say it isn’t that simple.
If freedmen are barred from citizenship, what’s to say that people won’t next try to bar those with limited Cherokee blood, Jewel Hendrix wonders.
Her sister, Mary Burr, agrees.
“I feel like you are (Cherokee) because you feel it in your heart, “ Burr says.
“You know that you are.”
Blood should not matter
So what makes a Cherokee?
Is it blood?
While some freedmen descendants surely have Indian blood, the majority probably don’t, says Daniel Littlefield Jr. of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and author of a book, The Cherokee Freedmen.
But, Littlefield says, blood should not matter.
Cherokees — who also count Shawnee and Delaware Indians and adopted whites as citizens — continued adopting blacks as citizens well after a treaty required it, making it hard to argue they were unwanted, he says. Once free to participate, there is ample evidence that black freedmen did just that.
Is being Cherokee about sharing a culture?
Long before the Civil War, Cherokee masters and black slaves crafted relationships that confounded stereotypes, says Tia Miles, a professor at the University of Michigan. Her book Ties that Bind: The Story of an Afro-Cherokee Family in Slavery examines those incongruities.
Cherokees and blacks prayed side by side. Slaves were teachers to Cherokee children. They danced together, staged races together. They spent so much time together, that it frustrated white missionaries bent on keeping them apart, Miles says.
Did Cherokees and blacks regard each other as family, friends, lovers? It’s hard to know with certainty.
“Yes, there was a line between who was enslaved and who was free and there was a line between who was Cherokee and who was black and who was white,” Miles says. “And yet, Cherokee people were much more willing to bend that line than white slaveholders were in the South, and to cross that line.”
It’s mostly over the last 100 years, after Jim Crow laws tried to separate races, that the intertwining of Cherokee and black unraveled, she says. Today, one of the most striking things about Indian country is the faces. Some prominent Cherokees of the past were products of intermarriage, and now a fair number of those who count themselves as Cherokee have fair skin or blue eyes or blond hair — and limited Indian blood.
Just 6,000 of the Cherokee Nation’s 260,000 citizens speak Cherokee. If the language goes, John Ketcher worries what will become of his tribe.
Still, he allows, there’s long been something about being Cherokee that’s defies quantifying.
On a drive out of town, he points the way down a country road and past an old one-room schoolhouse. Just beyond, a largely forgotten cemetery tops a bluff. There rests John Ross, a legendary chief. He’d almost certainly be against granting citizenship to those without blood, Ketcher says.
That is despite the fact that Ross was just one-eighth Cherokee.
“Even though he was very little Cherokee, he was more a full-blood then some of our full-bloods,” Ketcher says, with a sigh. “I think it’s probably what’s in the heart, eventually, you know.”
No quit in her
The Cherokee Nation — most of its land gone and its people spread across thousands of miles — has rebuilt itself, in part, by redefining itself.
“We basically have changed from a nation of territory to a nation of people,” says Smith, the chief.
Now the Nation will decide which people belong.
But freedmen descendants, prepared for the prospect that their newly won citizenship could be revoked, say history has already made that decision and they will accept no other.
If Cherokees reject her, Allen says she’ll go back to court.
“I’m not quitting. I’m still in for the fight,” she says.
“We might not ever see anything. But we’re looking out for our children now — and they wouldn’t know where to begin.”
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Post by Okwes on Jun 6, 2007 17:14:17 GMT -5
Nation Cherokee Tribe Faces Decision on Freedmen by Frank Morris
Enlarge Frank Morris Cherokee Principal Chief Chad Smith says tribes offer a real sense of identity to members.
Enlarge Frank Morris Johnny Toomer, a Cherokee Freedman, looks over photocopied documents in his living room that show his family connections to the tribe.
Enlarge Frank Morris The Cherokees are building a new clinic just outside Muskogee, Oklahoma.
Morning Edition, February 21, 2007 · A federal court hearing Wednesday pits Native Americans against the descendants of African slaves once kept by tribal members. The Cherokee Nation has moved to expel the people known as Cherokee Freedmen.
The Freedmen argue that a 140-year-old treaty protects their citizenship in the Cherokee Nation. The conflict puts the tribal government in the unusual position trying to argue against a long-standing treaty.
The Cherokee tribe has always been one of the largest in the United States. It was also once one of the wealthiest. Some of its members held more than 100 slaves on plantations in the south. In recent times though, many Cherokee have lived in deep poverty.
The tribe only recently tapped casino revenue to build modern health clinics, like the one rising from the countryside near Muskogee, Oklahoma.
With the Cherokee's financial picture brightening somewhat and a tribal ruling in their favor, Freedmen such as Johnny Toomer — a forklift operator in Muskogee — have staked their claim to membership.
"All I want [is] to be done is done fairly and right," Toomer said. "My ancestors received benefits and was done fairly. I want to be done fairly."
Toomer's great, great grandmother was the daughter of slaves held by the Cherokee. Her people likely walked to Oklahoma from Georgia on the infamous Trail of Tears, a march forced by the U.S. government that killed nearly a fifth of the tribe.
Toomer says the proof of his claim is in the photocopied documents arrayed on his coffee table. His relative's name is on what's called the Dawes Rolls, a federal government list of Cherokees, and members of four other tribes, living on Indian lands around 1900.
The Dawes Rolls have become the gold standard for determining tribal citizenship. If you have a direct descendant on the rolls, you're in.
But a century ago a bureaucrat marked that Toomer's great, great grandmother was a Cherokee Freedman. It's that notation that now puts his tribal citizenship at risk.
"Is it because of the color of my skin, [the] reason I'm not accepted? That's the way I feel about it sometimes," Toomer said.
A tribal court ruling last year forced the Cherokees to recognize Freedmen as citizens. That prompted Toomer and about 1,500 other Freedmen to sign up for membership cards.
That sparked a referendum to amend the tribe's constitution and formally expel the Freedmen.
"It's an Indian thing, we do not want non-Indians in the tribe, our Indian blood is what binds us together," said Jodie Fishinghawk, who helped lead the drive to expel the Freedmen.
She notes that nearly all Indian nations require their citizens to be able to document direct ancestors in the tribe. Standards vary from nation to nation, and most are more stringent than the Cherokee. Fishinghawk says a tribe's right to set conditions of citizenship is fundamental to its sovereignty.
"It's a democratic process, people are allowed to vote. That's what America is based on, that's what we use here in the Cherokee Nation," Fishinghawk said. "And I don't see any problem with it."
The Cherokee Freedmen do. After fighting on the losing side in the Civil War, the Cherokees signed a treaty guaranteeing their newly freed slaves citizenship in the tribe.
Marilyn Vann, president of the Descendants of Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes Association, says the 1866 treaty's protection outweighs the tribe's claims of sovereignty on this issue. And besides, she says, the Cherokee tribe has always been a diverse nation, not a race.
"You know there never was such a thing as the Cherokee Race. Cherokee was a citizenship," Vann said. "The federal government doesn't have government-to-government relations with races, only nations."
But this whole discussion of race really misses the point, according to Cherokee Principal Chief Chad Smith. In his office looking out at the sprawling tribal headquarters campus near Tahlequah, Okla., Smith said more people do want to be in the tribes these days. But it's not so much because of subsidized health care and housing, but rather a search for a cultural identity.
"And it's easy to grasp and look to tribes, who are indigenous and have a sense of identity, and have sustained themselves through terrible times," Smith said.
The Cherokee Freedmen maintain that their ancestors helped sustain the tribe through very the worst of times. They argue that now that things have improved they shouldn't have to fight to call themselves Cherokees.
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Post by blackcrowheart on Jun 13, 2007 15:14:59 GMT -5
Cherokees to Vote: Can Freedmen be Native American? February 27, 2007 at 12:00 am · Filed under VOA Social Issues, VOA Human Rights and Law, American Life, VOA
Next month, members of the Cherokee Nation will vote on whether to amend the tribal constitution to make Indian blood a requirement for citizenship. American Indian tribes are considered sovereign nations within the United States, and their citizens are entitled to tribal benefits, including subsidized housing and health care. At issue in the March 3 vote is the status of thousands of descendants of African slaves once owned by tribal members. The people known as Cherokee freedmen say a 140-year-old treaty protects their citizenship in the Cherokee Nation. The story raises questions about Native American identity, race and justice.
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Post by Okwes on Jun 14, 2007 10:48:31 GMT -5
History of Cherokee Freedman has been a struggle for equality Daniel Walker www.cjournal.com/features/local_story_059205541.html?keyword=tops\tory <http://www.cjournal.com/features/local_story_059205541.html?keyword=top\ story> COFFEYVILLE, Kan. — The history of the Cherokee Freedmen has been a story of the fight against oppression and for equal rights. On Saturday, March 3rd, 2007, another chapter in that struggle will be recorded. On that date, members of the Cherokee Nation will vote on whether to nullify an 1866 treaty that granted the freed slaves, held by Cherokees, equal rights as tribe members. The status of the Freedmen has been contentious. Forced to accept them by the U.S. government after the Civil War Freedmen were part of the Cherokee tribe, if an ostracized part, and then removed. Only to be reinstated in 2006 when the Cherokee Supreme Court ruled that the tribal constitution granted them membership status. That decision prompted a constitutional amendment to restrict membership to only Cherokees-by-blood. That amendment will be voted on Saturday by the tribe's 270,000 members. For many Freedmen descendants, being a member of the Cherokee Nation, which has a $300 million budget that is 80 percent funded by the U.S. federal and state governments, is a matter of honor that reflects their heritage as pioneers that tamed a wild wilderness. Just as freed slaves in Georgia or Alabama become citizens of the state they resided in, the Freedmen contend that they are entitled to become members of the nation that held them in slavery. B.J. Johnson, a Nowata County Deputy Sheriff and Freedmen descendant, said the most important part of citizenship is the recognition of that heritage. Johnson said his mother was especially proud when she received her tribal membership card in 2006. "She's been working for this for seventy years," Johnson said. "It means a lot to her." Johnson said that his mother wanted the scholarship opportunities for her children and grand-children, but that opportunity had passed‹ but not for future generations of Freedmen descendants. Census records state in 1860 that 2,511 slaves were held by the Cherokees. Conditions were harsh for those slaves. In 1842 a slave revolt was brutally crushed, and in 1848 slaves were prohibited from being taught to read. After the Civil War, the freed slaves were pushed to the fringes of the tribe. Many of them moved to the far northeast corner of the Cherokee Nation in the Cooweescoowee District in what is now Nowata and Craig Counties. The former slaves began to carve out new lives. Small towns began to crop up along the tributaries of the Verdigris River on a route leading to Coffeyville, Kansas. Sanders, Hayden, Elliot, Gooseneck Bend, Hickory Creek were founded, but an education for the Freedmen was next to impossible. They were not allowed to attend Cherokee schools. Daniel Littlefield, Jr., a professor at the University of Arkansas reported in his book The Cherokee Freedmen that the Freedmen were poor, illiterate, and had no concept of time. However, the Freedman knew that their status in the Cherokee nation depended on receiving an education. In 1878, a group of Freedmen petitioned President Rutherford B. Hayes to intervene on behalf of their children. In 1879, a school was started at Gooseneck, and, a year later, a school opened in Sanders. Soon, ten of the 102 Cherokee Nation schools were for Freedmen children. Today, all that is left of this history are the names of the towns and the cemeteries that contain the remains of those pioneers. Buried at Hickory Creek, six miles south of Coffeyville, are several black Civil War soldiers. Those soldiers fought for the Cherokee Union Home Guards. A lone church building stands nearby. Nine miles southeast of Coffeyville is Gooseneck Bend. There, in 1891, two hundred former slaves were armed by Coffeyville merchants with Winchester rifles and a brass cannon to hold off a Cherokee Sheriff posse which was attempting to drive them off their land. Today, no buildings remain, only a cemetery. Most of the headstones have been broken and are now piled in a heap on the edge of the cemetery that sits in a cattle pasture. Sanders has fared little better. The cemetery contains over a dozen World War I veterans, but vandals have decimated many graves. A half-dozen headstones lie in a creek down the road. An overgrown school building and a caved-in church sit at the ghost town's center. Charles Sanders, a descendant of the founders of Sanders in northeast Nowata County, remembered life in the 1920s, particularly the Juneteenth celebrations. Juneteenth honors June 19, the day that slaves in Texas (and by extension Indian-held slaves who had been carried to Texas to escape brutal fighting during the Civil War), were freed. Charles Sanders said that people would travel from all over to Big Creek near Sanders on June 19. "There were tables of food set up on both sides of the creek to show different people coming together," Sanders said. He explained that speeches would be given, wagon races held across the creek and a big celebration. "But it wasn't religious, it was a celebration of freedom," he added. According to local historian Curt Johnson, near the turn of the century a family of white pioneers, crossing the prairie near Sanders, died of typhoid. Because of segregated cemeteries, the whites were not able to be buried in the Sanders cemetery. However, the church pastor felt they should be buried on consecrated ground. The pastor had the four bodies buried in the front yard of the church, creating a white cemetery in the midst of the black town. Littlefield wrote that, in 1880, the Cherokees attempted to remove 86 families, listing them as intruders. The US federal government refused to comply. According to Littlefield, the Freedmen were anxious about their improvements. They came back after the war and saw the big farms that they had built as slaves, copied those efforts, and tamed a portion of the nation that was deemed untamable, and now the Cherokees were claiming it. Littlefield tells the case of William Hudson, who built a place on Big Creek. Hudson lived there, undisturbed, until 1880. That's when Bill Martin, the clerk of the Cooweescoowee District, had Hudson ejected from the land and confiscated it for himself. In 1883, five hundred Freedmen were forced to leave for the west, Littlefield wrote, because of intimidation. They were shot at as "the Cherokees went in squads and committed deprivations on the Freedmen." In May of 1891, the Coffeyville Journal recorded that the two hundred Freedmen, armed with Winchesters and a brass cannon filled with nails, were entrenched at Gooseneck in defiance of the Cherokee Nation. The Cherokees had issued an order of sale for their land. The matter was settled peacefully when US Indian Agent Leo E. Bennett intervened, writing the Freedmen, "The government will not permit the confiscation of your place by the Cherokees, but you must not become a lawbreaker yourself." The Freedmen have a long and distinguished history. On Saturday, March 3rd, 2007, Cherokee Nation members will decide whether that history has a place in their tribe.
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Post by Okwes on Jun 14, 2007 10:58:08 GMT -5
Cherokees pull freed slaves' memberships By MURRAY EVANS Associated Press Writer Article Last Updated: 03/04/2007 www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_5353440OKLAHOMA CITY- Cherokee Nation members voted Saturday to revoke the tribal citizenship of an estimated 2,800 descendants of the people the Cherokee once owned as slaves. With all 32 precincts reporting, 76.6 percent had voted in favor of an amendment to the tribal constitution that would limit citizenship to descendants of "by blood" tribe members as listed on the federal Dawes Commission's rolls from more than 100 years ago. The commission, set up by a Congress bent on breaking up Indians' collective lands and parceling them out to tribal citizens, drew up two rolls, one listing Cherokees by blood and the other listing freedmen, a roll of blacks regardless of whether they had Indian blood. Some opponents of the ballot question argued that attempts to remove freedmen from the tribe were motivated by racism. "I'm very disappointed that people bought into a lot of rhetoric and falsehoods by tribal leaders," said Marilyn Vann, president of the Oklahoma City-based Descendants of Freedmen of Five Civilized Tribes. Tribal officials said the vote was a matter of self-determination. "The Cherokee people exercised the most basic democratic right, the right to vote," tribal Principal Chief Chad Smith said. "Their voice is clear as to who should be citizens of the Cherokee Nation. No one else has the right to make that determination.' Smith said turnout—more than 8,700—was higher than turnout for the tribal vote on the Cherokee Nation constitution four years ago. "On lots of issues, when they go to identity, they become things that people pay attention to," Smith said. The petition drive for the ballot measure followed a March 2006 ruling by the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court that said an 1866 treaty assured freedmen descendants of tribal citizenship. Since then, more than 2,000 freedmen descendants have enrolled as citizens of the tribe. Court challenges by freedmen descendants seeking to stop the election were denied, but a federal judge left open the possibility that the case could be refiled if Cherokees voted to lift their membership rights. Tribal spokesman Mike Miller said the period to protest the election lasts until March 12 and Cherokee courts are the proper venue for a challenge. Vann promised a protest within the next week. "We don't accept this fraudulent election," Vann said. * The material in this post is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.For more information go to: www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.htmloregon.uoregon.edu/~csundt/documents.htmIf you wish to use copyrighted material from this email for purposes that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
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Post by blackcrowheart on Jun 17, 2007 22:26:21 GMT -5
Putting to a Vote the Question `Who Is Cherokee?'
Left two photographs by Paul Hellstern for The New York Times; Right, Associated Press The Cherokee Nation chief, Chad Smith, right, and other tribal leaders are officially neutral on a vote to exclude blacks like Marilyn Vann. By EVELYN NIEVES <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/n/evelyn_nie\ ves/index.html?inline=nyt-per> Published: March 3, 2007 TAHLEQUAH, Okla., March 1 — The casinos here are crowded by midmorning; busloads of tourists stroll the streets, and construction crews are everywhere. But peace of mind eludes the prospering Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/national/usstatesterritoriesandposse\ ssions/oklahoma/index.html?inline=nyt-geo> .
The Cherokees, so proud that they survived the racism and greed that forced them to leave the East and settle in Oklahoma, are embroiled in a debate that is dredging up some of the most painful chapters of their history. The fundamental question they are asking is: Who is Cherokee? And it is raising ugly accusations of racism, from both inside and outside the tribe.
At issue is a group barely known outside of Indian country, the Freedmen. These are the descendants of black slaves owned by Cherokees, free blacks who were married to Cherokees and the children of mixed-race families known as black Cherokees, all of whom joined the Cherokee migration to Oklahoma in 1838.
The Freedmen became full citizens of the Cherokee Nation after emancipation, as part of the Treaty of 1866 with the United States. But in 1983, by tribal decree, the Freedmen were denied the right to vote in tribal elections on the ground they were not "Cherokee by blood."
They sued, and in December won their challenge. But that has prompted a bigger fight. On Saturday, the Cherokee Nation is holding a special election — believed to be the first of its kind — to decide, in essence, whether to kick the Freedmen out of the tribe.
Officially, the election will ask voters whether to amend the Cherokee Nation Constitution. Overriding the 1866 treaty, it would limit citizenship to those who can trace their heritage to "Cherokee by blood" rolls, part of a census known as the Dawes Rolls of 1906. The Freedmen would automatically be denied citizenship because the Dawes Rolls, a census commissioned by Congress to distribute land to tribal members, put the Freedmen on a separate roll that made no mention of Indian blood.
Proponents of the amendment say it is about drawing a line, a blood line. The Cherokee Nation, the second-largest tribe in the country after the Navajo, is also one of the fastest growing, with 270,000 members and 1,000 new citizens enrolled every month. Members are entitled to federal benefits and tribal services , including medical and housing aid and scholarships.
"Every other Indian tribe is based on blood, and they are not accused of being racists," said John A. Ketcher, a former deputy tribal chief, in a full-page "Vote Yes" ad in the Cherokee newspaper.
Many tribal leaders are campaigning for the amendment, citing the right of a sovereign nation to determine its citizenship.
Voters say they have been bombarded with advertisements attacking "non-Indians" as thieves who would create long lines in Cherokee health clinics and social service centers.
Freedmen supporters chalk up the claims to bigotry. They say the Cherokee Nation knows all too well that many Freedmen (who number about 25,000) have Cherokee blood.
When the Dawes Rolls were created, those with any African blood were put on the Freedmen roll, even if they were half Cherokee. Those with mixed-white and Cherokee ancestry, even if they were seven-eighths white and one-eighth Cherokee, were put on the Cherokee by blood roll. More than 75 percent of those enrolled in the Cherokee Nation have less than one-quarter Cherokee blood, the vast majority of them of European ancestry.
Marilyn Vann said she could not believe that one election could determine whether she was allowed to claim Cherokee blood.
"There are Freedmen who can prove they have a full-blooded Cherokee grandfather who won't be members," said Ms. Vann, president of the Descendants of Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes. "And there are blond people who are 1/1000th Cherokee who are members."
Mike Miller, the Cherokee Nation spokesman, agreed.
"We are aware that there are those who can prove Indian blood who are not Cherokee citizens, because they are not on the Dawes `by blood' Rolls," Mr. Miller said. "But I don't know of a single tribe that determines citizenship through a bunch of sources."
This is the second time in recent years that an Indian nation has tried to remove its Freedmen. The Seminole Freedmen won a similar legal battle in 2003.
The Seminoles were formed when refugees from several tribes joined with runaway slaves. But after the Seminoles denied their Freedmen voting rights and financial benefits, effectively abrogating the Treaty of 1866, the federal government refused to recognize the Seminoles as a sovereign nation.
The Cherokees are also risking their tribal sovereignty, said Jon Velie, a lawyer for the Seminole and Cherokee Freedmen.
"There is this racial schism in Indian Country that is growing and getting worse," Mr. Velie said. "Even having the debate is the problem. You then become a lesser person because people get to decide whether you're in or not."
Taylor Keen, a Cherokee tribal council member who supports Freedmen citizenship, suggested that proponents of the amendment were pandering to racism, trying to score political points for when they run for tribal office in June.
"This is a sad chapter in Cherokee history," Mr. Keen said. "But this is not my Cherokee Nation. My Cherokee Nation is one that honors all parts of her past."
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Post by Okwes on Jun 29, 2007 18:44:24 GMT -5
Cherokee Freedmen to fight for inclusion www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-03-04-cherokee_N.htm?csp=34By Emily Bazar <http://www.usatoday.com/community/tags/reporter.aspx?id=198>, USA TODAY The descendants of former slaves owned by Cherokees say they'll fight in court for membership in the tribe. The Cherokee Freedmen were voted out of the tribe Saturday, when 77% of Cherokee voters approved an amendment to the tribe's constitution to limit citizenship to those who are Indian "by blood." There are about 2,700 Freedmen in the 270,000-member Cherokee Nation, tribe spokesman Mike Miller says. "Certainly we are not giving up," says Marilyn Vann, a Freedman who says she is Cherokee, Chickasaw and black. Vann, an engineer in Oklahoma City, stands to lose her Cherokee citizenship. She called the election a "travesty of justice" because many Freedmen have Cherokee as well as black ancestry. Ousted members will lose their vote as well as access to such tribal benefits as health care. The tribe does not pay gambling profits to members. "I would not take a million dollars to give up my treaty rights and legal rights to citizenship," Vann says. After the Civil War, the Cherokees signed a treaty with the U.S. government granting Freedmen and their descendants tribal citizenship. But the tribe, which ratified a new constitution in 1976, has denied them citizenship for much of the past three decades. After the tribe's highest court ruled last March that Freedmen could obtain citizenship, Cherokee citizens circulated a petition to bring the issue to a vote. The amendment approved Saturday limits Cherokee citizenship to Indians "by blood," determined from membership rolls created in the early 20th century. Those whose ancestors were on a separate Freedmen roll are not eligible. "The overwhelming majority of the Cherokee people said we want to be an Indian tribe made up of Indians, just like any other Indian tribe in the country," Principal Chief Chad Smith says. "It's not race-based. We have lots of folks who are racially black, Hispanic or white." Challenges to the election through the tribal process must be brought by March 12. Jon Velie, an attorney who represents Vann and other Freedmen, says he plans to proceed with a lawsuit pending in federal court. The lawsuit says the Cherokees' treatment of the Freedmen violates the postwar treaty and the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits slavery. Velie says precedent is on the Freedmen's side. The Seminole Nation voted Freedmen out of its tribe in 2000. After the U.S. government cut off funds to the tribe and a lawsuit in federal court validated the treaty, Velie says, the Seminoles took the Freedmen back. "We lost the battle," he says, "but we think we can win the war." ========== Tribe revokes freed slaves' membership www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-03-03-cherokee-vote_N.htm?csp=34OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- Cherokee Nation members voted Saturday to revoke the tribal citizenship of an estimated 2,800 descendants of the people the Cherokee once owned as slaves. With all 32 precincts reporting, 76.6% had voted in favor of an amendment to the tribal constitution that would limit citizenship to descendants of "by blood" tribe members as listed on the federal Dawes Commission's rolls from more than 100 years ago. The commission, set up by a Congress bent on breaking up Indians' collective lands and parceling them out to tribal citizens, drew up two rolls, one listing Cherokees by blood and the other listing freedmen, a roll of blacks regardless of whether they had Indian blood. Some opponents of the ballot question argued that attempts to remove freedmen from the tribe were motivated by racism. "I'm very disappointed that people bought into a lot of rhetoric and falsehoods by tribal leaders," said Marilyn Vann, president of the Oklahoma City-based Descendants of Freedmen of Five Civilized Tribes. FIND MORE STORIES IN: Smith <http://www.usatoday.com/community/tags/topic.aspx?req=tag&tag=Smith> | Okla <http://www.usatoday.com/community/tags/topic.aspx?req=tag&tag=Okla> | Tribe <http://www.usatoday.com/community/tags/topic.aspx?req=tag&tag=Tribe> | Cherokee Indians <http://www.usatoday.com/community/tags/topic.aspx?req=tag&tag=Cherokee%20Indians> | Everett Adair <http://www.usatoday.com/community/tags/topic.aspx?req=tag&tag=Everett%20Adair> Tribal officials said the vote was a matter of self-determination. "The Cherokee people exercised the most basic democratic right, the right to vote," tribal Principal Chief Chad Smith said. "Their voice is clear as to who should be citizens of the Cherokee Nation. No one else has the right to make that determination.' Smith said turnout -- more than 8,700 -- was higher than turnout for the tribal vote on the Cherokee Nation constitution four years ago. "On lots of issues, when they go to identity, they become things that people pay attention to," Smith said. The petition drive for the ballot measure followed a March 2006 ruling by the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court that said an 1866 treaty assured freedmen descendants of tribal citizenship. Since then, more than 2,000 freedmen descendants have enrolled as citizens of the tribe. Court challenges by freedmen descendants seeking to stop the election were denied, but a federal judge left open the possibility that the case could be refiled if Cherokees voted to lift their membership rights. Tribal spokesman Mike Miller said the period to protest the election lasts until March 12 and Cherokee courts are the proper venue for a challenge. Vann promised a protest within the next week. "We don't accept this fraudulent election," Vann said.
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Post by blackcrowheart on Jul 5, 2007 8:25:39 GMT -5
Cherokee Nation To Vote on Expelling Slaves' Descendants By Ellen Knickmeyer Washington Post Staff Writer VINITA, Okla. -- J.D. Baldridge, 73, has official government documents showing him to be a descendant of a full-blood Cherokee. He has memories of a youth spent among Cherokee neighbors and kin, at tribal stomp dances and hog fries. He holds on to a fair amount of Cherokee vocabulary. " Salali," Baldridge says, his face creasing into a smile at the word. "Squirrel stew. Oh, that was good." What Baldridge, a retired Oklahoma county sheriff, also has is at least one black ancestor, a former slave of a Cherokee family. That could get Baldridge cast out of the tribe, along with thousands of others. The 250,000-member Cherokee Nation will vote in a special election today whether to override a 141-year-old treaty and change the tribal constitution to bar "freedmen," the descendants of former tribal slaves, from being members of the sovereign nation. "It's a basic, inherent right to determine our own citizenry. We paid very dearly for those rights," Cherokee Principal Chief Chad Smith said in an interview last month in Oklahoma City. But the Cherokee freedmen see the vote as less about self-determination than about discrimination and historical blinders. They see in the referendum hints of racism and a desire by some Cherokees to deny the tribe's slave-owning past. "They know these people exist. And they're trying to push them aside, as though they were never with them," said Andra Shelton, one of Baldridge's family members. Shelton, 59, can recall her mother gossiping in fluent Cherokee when Cherokee friends and relatives visited. People on both sides of the issue say the fight is also about tribal politics -- the freedmen at times have been at odds with the tribal leadership -- and about money. Advocates of expelling the freedmen call it a matter of safeguarding tribal resources, which include a $350 million annual budget from federal and tribal revenue, and Cherokees' share of a gambling industry that, for U.S. tribes overall, takes in $22 billion a year. The grass-roots campaign for expulsion has given heavy play to warnings that keeping freedmen in the Cherokee Nation could encourage thousands more to sign up for a slice of the tribal pie. "Don't get taken advantage of by these people. They will suck you dry," Darren Buzzard, an advocate of expelling the freedmen, wrote last summer in a widely circulated e-mail denounced by freedmen. "Don't let black freedmen back you into a corner. PROTECT CHEROKEE CULTURE FOR OUR CHILDREN. FOR OUR DAUGHTER . . . FIGHT AGAINST THE INFILTRATION."
The issue is a remnant of the "peculiar institution" of Southern slavery and a discordant note set against the ringing statements of racial solidarity often voiced by people of color.
"It's oppressed people that's oppressing people," said Verdie Triplett, 53, an outspoken freedman of the Choctaw tribe, which, like the Cherokee, once owned black slaves.
Cherokees, along with Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks and Seminoles, were long known as the "Five Civilized Tribes" because they adopted many of the ways of their white neighbors in the South, including the holding of black slaves.
Many of the Cherokees' slaves accompanied the tribe when it was expelled from its traditional lands in North Carolina and Georgia and forced to migrate in 1838 and 1839 to Indian Territory, in what is now Oklahoma. Thousands of Cherokees died during the trip, which became known as the "Trail of Tears." It is not known how many of their slaves also perished.
The tribe fought for the Confederacy. In defeat, it signed a federal treaty in 1866 committing that its slaves, who had been freed by tribal decree during the war, would be absorbed as citizens of the Cherokee Nation.
By the late 1880s, Washington started opening up tribal lands in Oklahoma to white settlers, breaking previous pledges to the tribes. As a step toward ending tribal ownership of Indian Territory, Congress initiated a new census of the "Five Civilized Tribes" -- a census known as the Dawes Commission. It is that head count that the Cherokee Nation would use to determine the eligibility of freedmen.
Past censuses of the tribes had noted both the Indian and the African ancestry of freedmen, counting those of mixed heritage as Native Americans. The Dawes Commission took a different approach.
Setting up tents in fields and at crossroads, the census takers eyeballed and interviewed those who came before them, separating them into different categories. If someone seemed to be Indian or white with Indian blood, the commission listed that person as whole or part Indian, historians say. People who the officials thought looked black were listed as freedmen, and no Indian lineage was noted, according to freedmen and historians.
"In cases of mixed freedmen and Indian parents," Kent Carter wrote in his book "The Dawes Commission," applicants were "not given credit for having any Indian blood."
Baldridge's ancestors are recorded as freedmen in the Dawes rolls. Roy Baldridge, J.D.'s son, said that for the Dawes Commission, "if you had a drop of black blood, you were black."
"That's false," said Smith, the Cherokee chief. "I think there was not a fixed policy that if you were dark, you were put on the freedmen roll."
Still, whether people were listed as Indians or freedmen, they were, under the 1866 treaty, considered citizens of the Cherokee Nation. Today's vote could revoke that designation for freedmen.
The census recorded about 20,000 freedmen for the five tribes, said Angela Y. Walton-Raji, a genealogist whose research has been seminal for freedmen tracing their roots.
Descendants of those freed tribal slaves would number in the hundreds of thousands today, Walton-Raji said.
But segregation and the civil rights movement separated native members of the tribes from freedmen. Today, no more than a few thousand descendants of the slaves are officially members of the five tribes, leaving their prospects of defeating the Cherokee referendum slim. By late last month, about 2,800 had re-registered in time to vote.
"A lot of Cherokees don't know who the freedmen are," Smith said. Did he, growing up? "No."
The Cherokee Nation expelled many descendants of slaves in 1983 by requiring them to show a degree of Indian blood through the Dawes rolls. A tribal court reinstated them in March 2006. That spurred today's special election, which received a go-ahead Feb. 21 when a federal judge in Washington denied the freedmen's request for an injunction to halt the balloting.
Seated around a kitchen table recently at a family home in Vinita, one of Oklahoma's first settlements founded in part by Cherokee freedmen, the Baldridges spoke with bitterness about the dispute.
"It should have been a nonissue," Roy Baldridge, 51, said of the controversy in the Cherokee Nation. Stacks of photocopied U.S. government tribal censuses, genealogies and family photos lay spread out on the table. A portrait of Martin Luther King Jr. hung in the next room.
"It makes me sad that a few have brought this out and we're in this situation," he said.
And the fight over heritage is moving beyond the Cherokee Nation. The other tribes that owned slaves, and black descendants in those tribes, are watching the vote.
In 2000, the Seminole Nation expelled freedmen but was compelled by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and federal courts to take them back. The Creek Nation has battled its freedmen in court.
Over the winter, Choctaw and Chickasaw freedmen formed their own association.
At his home in Fort Coffee, a hamlet founded by Choctaw freedmen, Triplett said he is not trying to immerse himself in his Indian heritage. "Oh, no!" he said. "I'm black!"
But a few days later he stood at Fort Coffee's Choctaw cemetery, where because of renovation a chain-link fence separates the Indian and freedman sides of the graveyard. Triplett pointed out ancestors.
Leaving, he shouted a warning to the Choctaw side: "Guess who's coming to dinner!"
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The material in this post is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.For more information go to: www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html oregon.uoregon.edu/~csundt/documents.htm If you wish to use copyrighted material from this email for purposes that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
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Post by blackcrowheart on Jul 5, 2007 8:46:33 GMT -5
Cherokees Pull Memberships of Freed Slaves By SEAN MURPHY AP OKLAHOMA CITY (March 4) - The Cherokee Nation vote this weekend to revoke the citizenship of the descendants of people the Cherokee once owned as slaves was a blow to people who have relied on tribal benefits. Charlene White, a descendant of freed Cherokee slaves who were adopted into the tribe in 1866 under a treaty with the U.S. government, wondered Sunday where she would now go for the glaucoma treatment she has received at a tribal hospital in Stilwell. "I've got to go back to the doctor, but I don't know if I can go back to the clinic or if they're going to oust me right now," said White, 56, a disabled Tahlequah resident who lives on a fixed income. In Saturday's special election, more than 76 percent of voters decided to amend the Cherokee Nation's constitution to remove the estimated 2,800 freedmen descendants from the tribal rolls, according to results posted Sunday on the tribe's Web site. Marilyn Vann, president of the Descendants of Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes, said the election results undoubtedly will be challenged. "We will pursue the legal remedies that are available to us to stop people from not only losing their voting rights, but to receiving medical care and other services to which they are entitled under law," Vann said Sunday. "This is a fight for justice to stop these crimes against humanity." Cherokee Nation spokesman Mike Miller said Sunday that election results will not be finalized until after a protest period that extends through March 12. Services currently being received by freedmen descendants will not immediately be suspended, he said. "There isn't going to be some sort of sudden stop of a service that's ongoing," Miller said. "There will be some sort of transition period so that people understand what's going on." In a statement late Saturday, Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chad Smith said he was pleased with the turnout and election result. "Their voice is clear as to who should be citizens of the Cherokee Nation," Smith said. "No one else has the right to make that determination. It was a right of self-government, affirmed in 23 treaties with Great Britain and the United States and paid dearly with 4,000 lives on the Trail of Tears." The petition drive for the ballot measure followed a March 2006 ruling by the Cherokee Nation _Supreme Court_ (javascript: that said an 1866 treaty assured freedmen descendants of tribal citizenship. A similar situation occurred in 2000 when the Seminole Nation voted to cast freedmen descendants out of its tribe, said attorney Jon Velie of Norman, an expert on Indian law who has represented freedmen descendants in previous cases. "The United States, when posed the same situation with the Seminoles, would not recognize the election and they ultimately cut off most federal programs to the Seminoles," Velie said. "They also determined the Seminoles, without this relationship with the government, were not authorized to conduct gaming." Ultimately, the Seminole freedmen were allowed back into the tribe, Velie said. Velie said Saturday's vote already has hurt the tribe's public perception. "It's throwback, old-school racist rhetoric," Velie said. "And it's really heartbreaking, because the Cherokees are good people and have a very diverse citizenship," he said. Miller, the tribal spokesman, defended the Cherokees against charges of racism, saying that Saturday's vote showed the tribe was open to allowing its citizens vote on whether non-Indians be allowed membership. "I think it's actually the opposite. To say that the Cherokee Nation is intolerant or racist ignores the fact that we have an open dialogue and have the discussion, he said.
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Post by Okwes on Jul 15, 2007 16:06:37 GMT -5
Column: Cherokee voters say ‘yes’ to self-righteous racism
By Tommy Felts COFFEYVILLE JOURNAL (COFFEYVILLE, Kan.)
COFFEYVILLE, Kan. — A victim of one the worst chapters in American history, the Cherokee Nation has lost its moral high ground.
On Saturday, Cherokee voters revoked the tribal citizenship of descendents of black slaves — people whose lineage and history have been interwoven with the American Indian tribe since the earliest days of the United States.
By a vote of more than 3 to 1, members of the Cherokee Nation — headquartered in Tahlequah, Okla. — adopted an amendment to their constitution that excludes “Freedmen” (referring to those descended from slaves once owned by the Cherokee, as well as blacks who were married to Cherokees and children of mixed-race families) from the tribe’s rolls.
In a dangerous and grotesque turn of events, it seems the Freedmen’s blood isn’t pure enough for the Cherokee.
Why, after so many years, does it matter? The answer is one part greed, one part racism.
The rapidly growing Cherokee Nation, said to be the second-largest tribe behind the Navajo (1,000 new citizens are enrolled every month), is dependent on a number of special benefits provided by the U.S. government and tribal gaming revenues — including medical and housing aid, as well as scholarships. The more members, the fewer resources available to the tribe’s members. Cherokee leaders were faced with a dilemma: How could they maintain or better the quality of life for their people?
The answer they came up with was to redefine exactly who their people are. Cutting loose the Freedmen — who, some estimate, number in the thousands — was apparently an easy choice for those that voted, judging by the landslide results (77 percent in favor of expulsion) of the special election this weekend. Chad Smith, principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, actually bragged that voter turnout for the controversial constitutional amendment (the sole issue on the ballot) was unusually high — a fact that merely compounds the sad tragedy that has befallen the Freedmen.
But perhaps the bigger tragedy is the disgusting hypocrisy of today’s Cherokee Nation.
These are people whose ancestors were forced from their land, denied civil rights and treated as worthless dregs, unfit for life within the new society. With their stunning vote last weekend, the Cherokee have put their black and “mixed-race” brethren on a path toward the same fate. While the Freedmen are appealing the election’s results, they will soon be a people without a cultural identity, shunned by their fellow Cherokee — members of a group once proudly known as one of the Five Civilized Tribes.
“This is a sad chapter in Cherokee history,” Taylor Keen, a Cherokee tribal council member who opposed the amendment, told The New York Times. “But this is not my Cherokee Nation. My Cherokee Nation is one that honors all parts of her past.”
In a news release, the tribe’s principal chief extolled the virtues of the election’s outcome.
“The Cherokee people exercised the most basic democratic right, the right to vote,” Smith said. “Their voice is clear as to who should be citizens of the Cherokee Nation. No one else has the right to make that determination. It was a right of self-government, affirmed in 23 treaties with Great Britain and the United States and paid dearly with 4,000 lives on the Trail of Tears.’’
So, by Smith’s logic, could one suppose that the United States government would have been morally right in victimizing America’s native population if they had put the issue to a vote first? That’s about as ridiculous a notion as saying the government has earned the right to revoke the citizenship of all blacks because of the price we paid in the attack at Pearl Harbor. As cliched as it might be, two wrongs still don’t make a right.
American Indians have long presented their pre-European-influenced civilizations as simple, nearly-utopian communities — societies built on cooperation, sharing and peace. When we shake off the yoke of political correctness, we will recall that such recollections are not exactly accurate. Indian tribes were like all other groups of humans — they brutally battled among themselves and with their neighbors. The idea that they, along with their modern counterparts, were — and are still today — somehow inherently more enlightened and spiritually-superior to the rest of us is a fallacy perpetuated by white guilt and opportunists seeking to re-write history.
Remember that the majority of today’s Freedmen are descendents of slaves held by the Cherokee — one of several tribes that sided with the Confederates during the Civil War. After the war, the Freedmen were only freed and later admitted to the tribe because the federal government made it mandatory.
History, as well as the recent election, shows that the Cherokee are as fallible and susceptible to greed and prejudice as the rest of us. All civilizations are prone to monumental mistakes, but such self-righteous racism and greed disguised as self-determination are traits that should be met with our disgust.
Tommy Felts writes for the Coffeyville (Kan.) Journal.
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Post by Okwes on Jul 15, 2007 16:07:46 GMT -5
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First let me express that I regret the results of the Cherokee election. I must remind you however that it was and still is the Federal Government that imposed Blood Quantum on Native Americans as an element of Genocidal Policies. Before that it did not exist. Second let me remind you that U.S. Treaties with Indian Peoples have not been kept and that has resulted in abject poverty on the territories and reservations. Indian Peoples traded land for those treaties. If the American People had any honor they would live up to their treaty obligations. This vote is probably more a vote to help Indian Peoples end economic hardship rather than a vote against Black people. Also remember that there are a great number of Cherokee People who do not have ancestors on the Dawes Rolls who cannot be citizens either. History has been unkind to them as well. Additionally disenrollment from Tribes is taking place across this nation. These disenrollments do not involve Black people, but Indian people. Why is it that only when the disenrollment involves Black People that the media gets involved. I CALL THAT MEDIA RACISM. Are disenrolled Indian peoples less meaningful than disenrolled Black people? It seems so according to the lack of media attention given to disenrolled Indians. Finelly let me remind you that this issue is a two-way street. The Washington Redskins Football Team has a mascot that is deeply racist, yet Black players populate that team and many others in Colleges across this country. Why have Black athletes not supported the Indian people in their struggle to end racist mascots? So before you get your moral high horse up too high do a little more research and try to provide a more complete picture of reality. By showcasing only one side of the issue you are showing your historic racism against Indians. Hey, honor your treaties with our people and earn your right to criticize. Otherwise just give us our land back since you defaulted on your treaty obligations. Do you think there's enough blame to go around yet? I hope so. Awagadoga
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While I agree with Mr.Felts' comments, I would like to note the voter turn out was about 6,700 Cherokee voted for expulsion. Granted, turnout in tribal elections is always poor, but I am still surprised that national news organizations are willing to generalize so widely about "the Cherokee people" on the basis of such a small sample. Fewer than 7,000 people, or 3% of the total electorate, actually voted to disenroll the Freedmen. I was hospitalized and could not make it to the poll. I think the leadership, our chief and council, have failed the Cherokee and failed us miserably. While it is there duty to prevent such a catastrophic situation from happening, many of them supported and even fed the frenzie for removal of our brethern and sisters. Many of the freedmen descendants have ancestors who walked beside Cherokee on the trial of tears, the other removal. Sadly tribal politics have led us down a road I personally would not, do not, want my Nation to embark upon! Roy
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Why should the Cherokee be expected to maintain "the moral high ground" you speak of? The Cherokee were forcibly removed from their homelands by a vindictive government, made to march in horrbile circumstance all the way to Oklahoma, then as if stealing there land and resources, causing the deaths of thousands along the trail they demanded the Cherokee take the Freedmen into their Tribe. There is no right in what happened, it was not legal, just or fair and now they have rectified the injustice. If indeed the now former members of the Tribe can, like everyone else, prove they have Cherokee blood they will be enrolled, no speical forced privilege. It would appear to me that "racism" only appears in the comments of a belatedly interested media and court system simply and only because this involves "blacks." If there were an honest interest in tribal enrollment issues we would have heard from all of you do nothings while real "Inidans" were and are being kicked out of various Tribes. But, that would be to much to expect for in those cases it just involves "Indians." jim
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As a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and one that is considered "middle of the road", I would like to respond to this artice. Several false statements are included in this article as well as what has been seen in editorial pieces in the New york Times and the Washington Post. The vote was not simply about ousting the Freedmen or a nation determining its citizenry base, it was about voting out people of non-Indian blood, i.e. both the Freedmen and intermarried whites. Too many spindoctors want to play the race cards of black vs.white. As a cultural anthropologist and a geneaologist I can attest to the fact that the Freedmens claims of Indian blood are for the most part false (although there are a few exceptions and those that can prove it can petition to stay in the tribe). Unlike their Seminole Freedmen counterparts who assimilated and have maintained distinct communities, the Cherokee freedmen have throughout the history of the Cherokee Nation acted as individuals and have never attempted to be a part of traditional Cherokee culture i.e. the Four Mothers Society or the Nighthawk Keetoowahs. While I do sympathize with them on account of the fact they want benefits to make their lives better, just like everybody else, the Freedmen and the Intermarried Whites have not been immediatly cut off from the tribe and our given a transitional period before they are cut off completely. Even the Cherokee Nation, who is treated as a villian, has a heart. Unfortunately racial tension created by the Freedmen and Intermarried White spin doctors choose to want to continue to take something for nothing. If you want a real story about moral fortitude look at the overall history of how the Cherokee people have and continued to contribute to their communities through giving monies to local schools in their jurisdiction, how they are the largest employer in the state of Oklahoma and how as Will Rogers put it: "I never met a man I didn't like". Please don't villinize a people because they choose to make a consciece decision to vote out people of non-Indian blood. Wado. Jerrrid Lee Miller
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Mr. "SMITH" would do good to remember that hundreds of Freedmen also endured that heart wrenching and devastating trek via "The Trail of Tears" many lives were lost... many were saved by helping each one,with their Cherokee Brothers, Mothers, Fathers, Aunts Uncles and Cousins HELLO earth to "Mr. "SMITH" ! W.J. Sloan
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It's called "Race Preservation" stupid! But since YOUR RACE has been in the forefront of destroy BOTH races in the name of GREED and RACISM, how would you know. Guilt transfer huh? The Cherokees were FORCED to "receive" blacks as "citizens" by the same Race Hating Manifest Destiny Government that stole from and slaughtered them so what better way to do this "incognito" by DESTROYING their BLOOD LINES LEGALLY! Wondering if Hitler is in YOUR BLOODLINES Mr. Felt! Or...maybe Mr. Baum, "Mr. Wizard of Oz", who called for the extermination of ALL "SAVAGES"! richard boyden
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The "Freedmen" were made free by a resolution passed by the Cherokee Council in 1863. The 1866 Treaty only confirmed what the vast majority of high blood quantum Cherokees already knew. That is, that slavery is wrong and so was the Confederacy. It was the infamous Cherokee Treaty Party led by Stand Waite that forced the Cherokee Nation into the embarrassing position of having to surrender at the end of the Civil War when most Cherokees either wanted to remain neutral or fought for the North. After the death of my ancestor Chief John Ross the reins of power gradually shifted back to the Confederate Treaty Party. Today we see that this same evil has beguiled and convoluted the morals of the Cherokee People. I feel I must point out that there are no “Freedmen” today and those Black Cherokees that have been denied their citizenship rights are the descendants of Black Cherokee Citizens. How can this be allowed right here in the middle of the United States of America, the land of the FREE? Robin Carter Mayes
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I do not understand what a reporter who is describing a nation that was here before columbus can actually say it is racism when he can look at the history and write "the US made the cherokee accept the former black slave, other tribes that have side with the confederate, have this mandated by the US, but You must remember, the same cherokee nation also had fought with the union during the civil war also. This is an issue that can be brought up today, because Native Nation still have a right to determine who is a tribal member. Yet, I don't see anyone in the US stating they want to claim their european ancestry and applying for citizenship. Which you can, and leave this country, anytime. No one has a right to judge the Native Peoples and their tribal lineage but themselves. oklahoma
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I am in disagreement with your conclusion of why the Cherokee Nation held the special election on March 3. The following is strictly my opinion. First, the Cherokee Nation being a dependant sovereign nation must have the ability to define who its citizens are. This election affirmed that citizens and those applying for citizenship must have a blood relative on the Dawes Cherokee Roll. The race of the people listed on that roll and their descendants is not taken into consideration. All people with Cherokee Blood are welcome. At this point in time it matters not what quantum of Cherokee blood one has, only that they have it. It can be argued that the Dawes Cherokee Roll and other Dawes Rolls are imperfect. This election chose to use only the Dawes Cherokee Roll. Second, Most Southern Indians chose to fight on the Civil War side not necessarily out of political motives but for self-preservation. It was thought that the Confederacy was the stronger of the two warring sides and had the best chance of winning. When the Confederacy lost the war, a new treaty had to be negotiated between the Cherokee Nation and the US Government. In order to maintain its sovereignty, the Cherokee Nation was coerced into accepting people that were not considered Cherokee into the Cherokee Nation as citizens. As for being denied benefits, I as a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and living outside their jurisdiction, have never received any benefits other than Cherokee pride. Chief Smith once said that while he is Chief there will be no dividends from any source paid to individual citizens. If they were, they would be meager. Instead, the Cherokee Nation uses it resource to fund medical facilities, schools, fire departments, marshal services and others in need. If those that were excluded from citizenship were receiving benefits from the Cherokee Nation (and are no long receiving them) were to apply for public assistance, they might find that those benefits are greater because the Cherokee Nation funds are more limited. Public funds as many of have come to understand, are only limited by the audacity of its politicians. Lloyd Grishow
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I thought that journalist's were supose to remain unbiased on stories, this is a decision of the people, right or wrong not our judgement to make. A strong vote is the voice of the people doing, who at the time the goverment made choices for them without regard to the peoples voice, so who is wrong, the goverment or the people, just using the strong voice they have learned to use. luckie
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I voted for the admendment not to be racist but for the fact, all nations should have rights to decide who should make up their membership. If any or all Freedmans are Cherokee's by blood then prove such and we welcome you in. If you can't prove your heritage then you are not considered as part of the Cherokee Nation. As far as racism, of course you will say that because when you can't think of anything else to intellectually say then play the racist card. I have noticed you fail to do research on your story but depended upon other newspapers opinions for education. Please state facts and not opinions. This is why our media has been headed downward for years and failing to remain neutral. This was not about Freedman's against Cherokee at least not to me. It is about proving you are of Cherokee lineage. All I ask is prove it. I would like to vote for a minimum of Cherokee blood. If that makes me racist that you must be Cherokee to be a Cherokee member then so be it. Your own government set the Freedman's on a separate roll. Do you know why? I would imagine you will have to wait for the Tulsa paper to explain it to you. Bob Pierce
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Excellent article! I am a descendant of the Dawes Freedmen Roll and a citizen for the time being, My family has Cherokee blood but were placed on the Freedmen roll due to the African ancestry. I think one last Roll should be taken of all the Freedmen descendents to correct the obviously flawed Dawes Roll and allow those that have Indian Blood a chance to prove it and be placed on the by blood rolls and those Freedmen that do not have Indian blood be given the same rights and citizenship since their forefathers and mothers help built the Cherokee Natiion and after all we were "SLAVES" so they owe us restitution !!!! Better yet just abolished the European Blood Law ! Patricia
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Amazing that after all that was done to them . . . And their ancestors accepted the Black folks into the tribe, married with them, and were part of what became the Cherokee tribe. How can they go back on that. What about "precedence"? CCC
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Post by Okwes on Jul 15, 2007 16:08:46 GMT -5
Comments Continued What irony. But so many of the Cherokee are a HUGE part White. Look at their BIA cards for the blood quantum. Nearly no one is left who is 100% So why don't they vote out everyone who doesn't have a 100 blood quantum? It's just plain racism. the Cherokee (more than any other tribe) practiced a kind of slavery that included the enslavement of Africans who they effectively "took in." But slavery among the Cherokee was more like "indenture" in that the people they "enslaved" didn't stay in that status forever, but--instead--as was true with indenture, the slavery would end . . . usually with the former slave staying with the tribe, marrying into the tribe, and becoming part of the tribe . . . kind of by osmosis or some kind of "tenure" standing. When the Cherokee were driven out of the Southeast in the Removal (Trail of Tears), their Black Indian brothers and sisters-in-law and cousins went too. They were viewed as part of the tribe and treated by the Government and the Cherokee (and the other tribes that had evolved similarly) in the same way one would treat any other family members. It is a lot too late for the modern-day gambling-money-hungry Cherokee to try to undo what their ancestors allowed . . . by the way they adopeted people into their bands, by the way their practiced slavery, by the way they permitted marriage, etc. People who are not familiar with this topic should do a Google search for "Black Indian" --[use quotation marks around the phrase]. Read the works of Jack Forbes an American Indian scholar in California who has devoted years to this issue. Also, post to the "Melungeon List" on Roots Web where many people who are part Indian, part Black, and mostly White discuss these kinds of issues on a daily basis. Curtis -- friend9 CCC - Curtis - friend9 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What irony. But so many of the Cherokee are a HUGE part White. Look at their BIA cards for the blood quantum. Nearly no one is left who is 100% So why don't they vote out everyone who doesn't have a 100 blood quantum? It's just plain racism. the Cherokee (more than any other tribe) practiced a kind of slavery that included the enslavement of Africans who they effectively "took in." But slavery among the Cherokee was more like "indenture" in that the people they "enslaved" didn't stay in that status forever, but--instead--as was true with indenture, the slavery would end . . . usually with the former slave staying with the tribe, marrying into the tribe, and becoming part of the tribe . . . kind of by osmosis or some kind of "tenure" standing. When the Cherokee were driven out of the Southeast in the Removal (Trail of Tears), their Black Indian brothers and sisters-in-law and cousins went too. They were viewed as part of the tribe and treated by the Government and the Cherokee (and the other tribes that had evolved similarly) in the same way one would treat any other family members. It is a lot too late for the modern-day gambling-money-hungry Cherokee to try to undo what their ancestors allowed . . . by the way they adopeted people into their bands, by the way their practiced slavery, by the way they permitted marriage, etc. People who are not familiar with this topic should do a Google search for "Black Indian" --[use quotation marks around the phrase]. Read the works of Jack Forbes an American Indian scholar in California who has devoted years to this issue. Also, post to the "Melungeon List" on Roots Web where many people who are part Indian, part Black, and mostly White discuss these kinds of issues on a daily basis. Curtis -- friend9 CCC - Curtis - friend9 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- An apology needs to be printed to the Cherokee Tribe. The greed is on the part of the Freedman decendants. They want gimme's only. I have yet to hear them say they have anything to contribute to the tribe. Did you mention the Intermarried Whites that were also being removed. Racism is not an issue against the blacks since whites were also involved. Get the real facts please and print them. Donna -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For years, we have blamed the white man for our problems and the discriminatory practices. Now who's to blame? ?? wompisocki anockqus -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This was a well written informative article up to the last paragraph... Which sounds like it could have been written by smith himself this is one of the blatant untruths pushed by Smith and his minion upon the most venerable sect of the nation, the elderly and the young families,the pushers of the vile act went into the communities and ask the people if there was no media around, "do you want these N****RS with no Cherokee blood that were force on us, taking all of your health and education benefits?" Here is a picture of a card that was sent out by the smith administration that confirms this vile act by them! Front www.jalagi.org/kcard.jpg Back www.jalagi.org/kcardb.jpg Then if you are serious about learning the truth about how and why and when the Freedmen became and are Cherokee, I will give you some links to material that will tell you, the Cherokee freed their slave on their own after the war, in 1863, here is a picture of the law written by the National Council of the Cherokee www.cornsilks.com/1863emplaw.gif Yes it is true the Cherokee fought on the side of the Confederacy, but the 1866 treaty the Cherokee agreed to with the U.S was not an order as smith and company would have you believe forcing the Freed slaves on the Cherokee People, they had already accepted them with full rights of a Citizen of the Nation with NO blood requirement by the legislative act. The 1866 Treaty simply reiterated that fact, See the 1866 Treaty here www.cornsilks.com/1866treaty.html see Articles 4, 5, 9 and 10 for issues of the freed slaves. Then in the same year of 1866 the 1839 Constitution of the Cherokee was amended making into Cherokee Law the Citizenship rights of the freed slaves se it here www.cornsilks.com/1839constitutionofthecherokeeo.html See article I Section 2, and Article III section 5. BTW these Freed slaves did not become known a as freedmen until the Dawes commission era. Chief Smith is a Lawyer he knows all this but he does not care he wants the freedmen out so they can't vote in the Chief election in June 2007, sad but simple fact! John Cornsilk John Cornsilk -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cherokee Nation as people know it at Telaquah is there illeagly to begin with if the cherokee people know there history the true CNO of okla is the Western Cherokee Old settlers The Dawes commisioned indians are an illeagle bunch according to history the Dawes Commision Rolls were Deleted by the federal government in 1935. An to top that off ever sence J R was chief also illeagly they stole the tribal office from the old settlers by locking them out and takeing over the office After the oldsettlers took them in when they left arkansaw where they were droped off by the federal government in 1832 to 1836 and this is when they started bringing them into Okla. and the old settlers were welcoming them and giveing them a place to live land alotments. sort of brings back history if you go back to columbus days and the Wampanoaughs took them in and feed them and helped them to settle. and they later becam some of the slaves that were taken back to spain and england. It looks to me like regression instead of progression. Looks to me like all the people thart are of cherokee blood need to come together and this means the freedman also they are our family Im a mixed blood cherokee,creek.Chocktaw, shawnee. 3/4the rest is french. and I agree with Mr taylor Keen. it is not the Cherokees I know must be Dawes Commisioned huh? aho and Wado usdi ah woe ha lee -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I think if was time that Real Indians take a stand for their own Tribe. People always take the side of Black. Yes they were slaves, but being put into slavery with a Tribe or Indians was there ride to FREEDOM, is that the reason for the name FREEDMEN. Think about it. Real Indian -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wow! Mr. Felts, you need to crack a history book once in awhile before you get in to deep. There are people that are still registered as members of the tribe that have african ancestry as well as blue eyed european ancestry. The common bond is that they both have an ancestor that was listed on the dawes commission roles as cherokee. The election in no way will affect thier status as citizens within the tribe. As far as racism is concerned I am sure that there are some within the tribe that are bigoted, but not any more or less than people in general. That's realistic. Unlike your comment on the pearl harbor thing. You'll have to go into more detail so I can understand that train of thought. As for your paragraph about the American Indian presenting their pre-European civilization as "simple nearly-utopian communities". All anyone has to do is ask us(the indian) we'll be glad to compare historical notes. No tribe, race, or ethnic group are exempt from the foibles of mankind. So in closing, I recommend that you join a group that is called One Nation. There an anti-indian anti-anything that is not lock step with the dominant culture. Sincerely, Bill Collins Bill Collins -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I am not in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, but I have Cherokee blood on my Mother's side and possibly from my father's side, hes from Texas. My great-grandmother look full blooded from a photo, but I dont know for sure. But my understanding is that the Cherokees, whether mixed blood with white who owned most of the slaves and the freed slaves signed into the Dawes Commission were considered citizens of the Cherokee Nation. My understanding was most of the full bloods and other Cherokees did not register with the Dawes Commission because they did not trust the US government(given the Indian Removal) So most of the Cherokees are not enrolled. Plus why havent the descendants of the Freedmen vote, were they not eligible? Why a small minority voted for a huge impact on a segment of the population that was always an intergral part of cherokee nation? Just a question. Johnny Johnny Fountano -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I am not from the Cherokee Nation but I am a native american from california. I feel for the Cherokee people I beleive that they are only trying to exercise their soverign rights and when they do they are realizing just like a lot of the other tribes here in the United States that there is no such thing. A lot of tribes in California take even there own families off their tribal rolls, and the people have to accept that because that is how are peoples operated through history. It should not matter who the Cherokee take off their tribal rolls, its their soverign right as a self governing people. If the Us intervenes than that also breaks the treaty of all the tribes in the United States. Cosos -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I am not from the Cherokee Nation but I am a native american from california. I feel for the Cherokee people I beleive that they are only trying to exercise their soverign rights and when they do they are realizing just like a lot of the other tribes here in the United States that there is no such thing. A lot of tribes in California take even there own families off their tribal rolls, and the people have to accept that because that is how are peoples operated through history. It should not matter who the Cherokee take off their tribal rolls, its their soverign right as a self governing people. If the Us intervenes than that also breaks the treaty of all the tribes in the United States. Cosos
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Post by blackcrowheart on Aug 23, 2007 11:51:17 GMT -5
BIA Approves Cherokee Nation Constitutional Amendment TAHLEQUAH, Oka. — The Bureau of Indian Affairs has acknowledged that the federal government no longer has the authority to approve amendments to the Cherokee Nation Constitution. In a letter dated August 9, the BIA’s top official, Carl Artman, cited a June 23 vote of the Cherokee people and agreed that federal approval of amendments to the Cherokee Nation Constitution would no longer be necessary. “This acknowledgment of our sovereignty should be seen as a victory not just for the Cherokee Nation, but for all tribes who understand the importance of self-governance and crafting a Constitution by and for their own people, without interference from Washington, D.C,” said Chad Smith, Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation. The letter ends an eight-year struggle by the Cherokee Nation to remove the BIA from its Constitutional process. “I have to thank Cherokee patriots like Jay Hannah, Ralph Keen Jr., and so many others who worked on our Constitutional Convention since 1999,” Smith said. “Without the efforts of Cherokee citizens like them, this day might never have come.” “The BIA has told us what we already knew---the Cherokee people do not need a federal bureaucracy micromanaging our Nation,” said Meredith Frailey, Speaker of the Cherokee Nation Tribal Council. “The Cherokee people are remarkable and resilient. When you consider our history and the remarkable progress our government has made, it is obvious that the Cherokee people citizens are perfectly capable of making fundamental decisions about our government for ourselves.” The Cherokee Nation re-affirmed its 2003 Constitutional amendment rejecting BIA approval with a 67%-33% vote on June 23, despite claims from some candidates for office that a yes vote would result in a negative reaction by the BIA. “Some candidates actively deceived our own people, even claiming the BIA would cut our funding if we voted yes,” Smith said. “In fact, just the opposite is true: the BIA has said repeatedly they do not intend to cut funding and that they affirm our tribal sovereignty.” The BIA’s regional director, Jeanette Hanna, recommended approval of the amendment in July. “We appreciate Jeanette Hanna’s prompt action on our vote in June, and we owe her a debt of gratitude for her service in the regional office,” Smith said. “This action demonstrates the BIA backs up the federal policy of self-governance for Indian nations, and we do appreciate that they acknowledge what our own courts have already held to be true: that the Cherokee people are the only people with the right to decide what our Constitution says.” For more information and to view a copy of the BIA’s letters about the Constitution and about Cherokee Nation funding issues please visit the Cherokee Nation’s web site at www.cherokee.orgBIA's Approval Letter: www.cherokee.org/docs/news/BIA_ltr_Artman_080920007_readable.pdfBIA's Funding Support Letter: www.cherokee.org/docs/citizenstatuschanges/BIA_ltr_6-22-20070001.pdfIf you have a chance to make life better for others and fail to do so, you are wasting your time on Earth. No matter what our station in life, we are here to serve, even if that sometimes means making the greatest sacrifice of all. Sooner or later you are going to learn just as I did, that there's a difference between KNOWING the path and WALKING the path. www.theupcn.com/
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